I guess i should have mentioned our office is very strict about relationships. They are absolutely, positively NOT allowed.

It sounds to me like shes definitely interested but taking things further jeopardizes both of your jobs. That might me why she wants to put the friendship label on everything and yet sends you messages regarding pursuing her.

That's what I got out of it.

Also, I have a rule of 2. If you've exchanged 2 emails (or texts) and you're still unclear, it's time to pick up the phone and talk about it. Chances are, you two are on different wavelengths.

I think we've exchanged a few hundred texts in the past month, but most have been innocent. I certainly HOPE she isn't just playing games. A friend of mine made the comment that she must be interested, because she wouldn't go out in public and risk her job just to make a new friend. He said the risk vs reward factor was too small, and we could easily be friends isolated to the workplace.

I'll certainly try bringing up the subject tonight.

Allow me to bring up the female-to-male translator: "Yes, I am interested in you, but you know that overt displays of affection at work will get one or both of us fired. So just cool down horndog, wait for the first date, and we'll take things one day at a time."

I'm just saying this because from the posts so far you remind me very much of me when I first started dating seriously. I needed constant reminders from the girl that she was into me and read too much into what she said or did. I eventually got over myself and, several ex-girlfriends later I developed enough self-esteem and self-control to approach things one day at a time - which is how I courted my wife and to this day is how we treat our relationship. We take things one day at a time.

Now I'm at the stage that when my 25-year-old cousin tells me about men in her life I always respond with "God! Why do the guys who date you sound soo needy?"

Debrief:Ours was a bittersweet return to flight duty. Nothing much to report on the way to the target. Flak was light, enemy opposition was light. Neil, I mean, Lieutenant Gosser, put the bombs in the pickle barrel this time. He was so proud of it too. Kept crowing about it all the way till we saw the white cliffs of Dover.

I think that's when we, and our little friends decided to let our guard down for a little bit. That was all the time that Jerry needed. We got jumped by five Fw190's. Our little friends managed to drive off the ones on our Six and Nine o' clock. Neil actually nailed the one coming in at Twelve o' clock High. And that's when the bastard at Ten-thirty level killed Neil with a 20mm round to the head. He died instantly. He was a good man, and a damned fine bombardier. He will be missed.

Has anyone heard of Codea? It looks very interesting, though I'm a sucker for all things game-maker Looks like they even came out with a game that was made with Codea itself called Cargo-Bot

That looks pretty neat. It may just be my gateway to convincing myself to buy an Ipad. It probably would require investment into a bluetooth keyboard though. I've tried typing with the Ipad keyboard and I don't see myself using that for anything more than 1-2 lines before going bonkers.

There are some programmers that don't look forward to the idea of doing the same thing we do for work when we get home.

I was about to chime in that I sort of fall into that group. But then I thought - what if Notch also modeled ship sensors such that we could program the computer to take readings of a planet to find out its material composition, atmosphere, and whether it contained biological life? That would be pretty cool, and would at least give me some insight into what the guys who write instrument flight software code have to deal with.

Just saw the movie this past weekend. Read the books, and thought the movie did a good job portraying the general feel of the first one. Although, since my wife did not read them she had a few questions for me to answer. So in that respect I think the movie could have done better for to those who haven't read the book. It seems like the shakey cam was very jarring in the beginning and then started becoming more minimal as the movie went on. Then for the later half of the movie the shakeycam was used for more appropriate moments.

On the beginning:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Shakey cam was especially jarring when you see Katniss getting ready and going out to the woods because there is one scene where the camera does not move at all. I think its the one with people walking in the background. So it was like

Has anyone else noticed that he's putting a lot of effort into this DPU-16 computer? An emulated 16-bit CPU that can be programmed via assembly language from which you can create higher-level languages? I guess that's fun but I would hope there is a way to import code that other people have created so I don't have to do that myself.

I suggest that, due to limited free time, you pick 1 or 2 days in the week and a specific time on which to log on and do a group quest: either a flashpoint or a heroic. I know I'd be up for doing the lower level flashpoints, even if only to get social points. Not now though, maybe in a few weeks

Debrief:Our outbound leg was relatively quiet compared to previous missions. Our escort drove off contacts in Zone2 and it wasn't until Zone4 that we encountered enemy fighters. Then from Zone 4 to the target zone we had about zero help from the escorts. Luckily we seemed to be facing the Junior Varsity of enemy fighters because they either missed or flew right into the tracers of our ball and nose guns.

It started getting dicey once we were in the target zone, but again, not as hairy as previous missions. It wasn't until a lucky sonuvabitch in a 190 came in on our 3o'clock that I started getting worried. He walked his shells from nose to tail, knocking out the norden bombsight, poking holes in the starboard wing and tail. That's when Max, er, Sgt. Junkins got hit. He didn't cry out or anything though, just gave a loud grunt. Sgts Wakefield and Sidney tried to stabilize the bleeding as much as they could but I knew something was wrong when they stopped calling out his status on the intercom.

The bombardier couldn't do anything without the bombsight so I just told him to drop the bombs when he saw the other planes drop theirs. Of course we didn't hit the target, but at this point I wanted to stay in formation and get back out of there.

After that it was back to the Junior Varsity attacks. Even Sgt. Welk at tail guns racked up a kill when a 190 tried coming up on our tail. We started seeing some good fighter cover from zone 5 onwards. I was really appreciative in zone5 when 3 out of 5 190's were driven off. Zones 3 and 2 saw no enemy aircraft at all.

Only Sgt. Junkins death keeps me from calling it a good mission. Sgt. Wakefield tells me he died sometime after we left the the Netherlands and were back over the Channel.

My post-apocalyptic soundtrack:1. first song - overall theme for the apocalypse -Hit Me with Your Best Shot, Pat Benatar2. second song - plays during your first zombie kill -Jessie's Girl, Rick Springfield3. third song - plays while you are getting chased by the Horde -Forget You, Cee Lo4. fourth song - plays while you're forced to kill your loved one -Telephone, Lady Gaga5. fifth song - plays when you find your new love interest -Rumour Has It, Adele6. sixth song - plays when you make your final stand -Dancing Queen, Abba7. seventh song - plays when you think you make it through it all -Sing, the Carpenters (and Sesame Street)8. eigth song - plays when you discover a bite mark on you -Hakuna Matata, Disney

Actually I was thinking that the Ipad combined with a physical board game could probably herald a resurgence in electronic board games for the 21st century. Games like Dark Tower or the Omega Virus could be reskinned into an Ipad App which serves as the electronic centerpiece and PDFs to print and cut out to be the boardgame and playing pieces.

Debrief:We thought this was going to be an easy run, just two zones out. In fact enemy fighters didn't even come near us over the Channel. Over the target our neighbor B-17's showed tight formation flying, such that only two 110s got even near us and they missed. Another attacking wave of fighters were driven off by the defensive fire from the tight formation.

Then the flak came. I guess it was just our time to get hit. Two shells hit the tail rudder and starboard wing root. Not so bad. Then two more hit near the port wing and nose. Both the bombardier and navigator suffered light wounds from the shell fragments flying through the nose compartment. Our #2 engine went out, died so fast we didn't even have a chance to feather the prop. Then Lieutenant Lohr saw fuel leaking from our starboard wing, inboard tank. We prayed real hard and fast for that tank to self-seal, and it did. I was just about to turn control over to the bombardier when the final flak shell hit the #1 engine. It coughed a few times and died. We feathered the prop but even so we knew we had to jettison the bombs and drop out of formation.

Then the fighters came at us with a vengeance. The first wave of three 190's and a 109 came at us, engines screaming. Sgt Junkins at starboard guns downed one of the butcher birds on its first pass. Another 190 shot up the radio room, damaging the control cables then came around again and walked shells right along the fuselage. He knocked out the port gunner heat unit, but luckily we were already near 10,000 feet so Sgt. Everton didn't get frostbite. Then on his third pass he stitched holes in the starboard wing. The last 190 and 109 made three separate passes each, but they just kept missing. Must have been rookies, thank god.

Another round of 190's and a 109 came at us again. One fighter hit the control cables along the waist and stitched more holes in the starboard wing. That wing was starting to look like swiss cheese. He came around again to 9 o'clock high where Sgt. Havener hit him with the top turret guns, causing him to miss and break off the attack. That's about when Sgt. Everton got hit in the chest from a 190 coming in at 1:30 High. Fragments from the shell round hit Sgt. Junkins, who was wounded but still able to render aid to Sgt. Everton and then resume manning his starboard gun.

Since we were still over the target we had to endure another round of flak just to get the hell out of there. Luckily all shell bursts missed. I guess they were still calibrated to hit the formation and the flak gunners had better targets than us.

I think we were all holding our breath until we saw the grey waters of the Channel. It was even better when we saw those Spitfires coming towards us. They drove off three of the 5 enemy fighters that were coming in for their attacks. Those three had us bracketed at our nose and tail. The other two missed on their first runs and were driven off before they could come around again.

Sgt. Everton is expected to recover in about 6 months. We will miss him and his jokes.

Debrief:Two waves of fighters attacked us just as we started crossing the Channel. Our escort must have been busy helping other bombers because only one was driven off. One from the second wave, all 110s, managed to knock out the starboard waist gun. I ordered Sgt. Jenkins to continue moving and tracking inbound fighters to disguise the loss of the gun. I think they still figured it out since we encouintered more than the usual number of attacks from 3 o'clock high and low.

Sgt. Havener in the top turret did an excellent job in covering our weak spot. More on his actions at the end of his report.

Enemy fighters seem to using more vertical dive tactics, probably as an attempt to minimize defensive gunnery. We experienced no less than 3 vertical dive attacks during the mission, one of which came from out of the sun, so no one saw him till he zoomed by. I guess the only good thing I can say about this is that the Germans still have not gotten the skill needed for these high speed attacks, as all diving attacks missed.

Lieutenant Gosser sustained minor wounds to his face and arms from shrapnel, courtesy of a head-on attack fron a 190 prior to the bomb run. Despite this he was still able to operate his bombsight and drop on target for 40% accuracy. In addition he managed to damage a 109 as it was coming around to 12 o'clock for another pass. That same 109 had just knocked out our port tailplane elevator in the first pass. For these actions of gallantry and skill while wounded I would like to reccommend the Air Medal for Lt. Gosser.

Sgt. Welk also claimed a kill prior to the bomb run, an Me109 at 6 o'clock high.

As for Sgt. Havener, he scored a probable while we were outbound over the channel, a 109 at 3 high. That was followed by a kill at 3 high over the target, a second kill on the return leg over France (again at 3 high) and the third kill inbound over the Channel at 3 level. All three kills were Me109s. Therefore I would like to recommend Sgt. Havener be awarded the Air Medal in recognition for his skill and marksmanship, conducted in defense of his plane and fellow crewmen, while covering a weakened defensive sector.

Finally I would like to commend the coordination of all the gunners in the 151st. On no less than two occasions my crew witnessed enemy aircraft driven off by other bombers in the squadron; these were planes that clearly had us in their sights. I'm having Lt. Lohr pass the word that drinks are on me for all our 151st boys. That is, on our first leave off base.

I take no position one way or the other, on one hand you have a catholic university who before she enrolled KNEW she wasn't going to get contraception insurance but took it anyway, and on the other hand, you bring up the good point of some women needing birth control even when not sexually active.

Yes, because so many high school seniors make their choice of college based on how much coverage they get on their health care. Every high school student thinks he/she is invincible. I should know, I was one once. Sidenote: I realize Sandra Fluke is a Law student but the point still stands. If the University is barring graduate students from medicine associated with reproductive systems then they certainly are barring it from undergrads.

But consider this. Say you're a fine upstanding Catholic young woman. You're a virgin, and Georgetown U has accepted you. You attend and in your first year of college you find out you're getting more and more blood when you have your period. You go to Student Health Services and find out you have Von Willebrand disease. No biggie, says the doctor, a lot of folks have this, and yours seems to be genetically inherited. You're probably getting increased blood loss because your body is in its most fertile part of its lifespan. He goes to prescribe you iron pills and birth control pills to help regulate the periods so you at least don't suffer too much blood loss (because wooziness and lethargy from that won't help you study in college).

You say "thanks doc" and then give an OH SHIT when you realize the Georgetown U policy is to not cover the cost of the Pill for sluts like you (sarcasm intended).

I for one find it amazing and wonderful that doctors can find multiple uses for a given drug or pill. For example, how aspirin can be used not just to cure headaches but also for treating arthritis, as an anti-coagulant for people who suffered heart attack or stroke, and for people who wish to lower their risk of heart attack.

Yes he is a douche, but the fact is it's the religion that is the bigger douche here. Catholicism does not tolerate homosexuality, and as a Lesbian she shouldn't be able to consciously be a Catholic and take communion. She really should rethink her religious beliefs and realize that Catholicism is not for her. She would probably be a lot happier.

That's weird because the written statement by the Archdiocese in that article would lead me to believe otherwise. If Catholicism didn't tolerate homosexuality to the point of withholding communion from known homosexuals then the Archdiocese would have stood behind the priest's decision.

On a separate note, it is truly sad that the priest does not get what Jesus was trying to teach in the gospels. He didn't hang around with like minded holier-than-thou folk, he hung with prostitutes and fishermen, and told uplifting stories involving people not of his religion.

We were flying the high squadron position. So no modifiers to the die roll for enemy fighters. The poor guys in the 154th were in the low-low position, +1 to die rolls to see how many waves of enemy fighters attacked.

Debrief:Jumped by five 109s over the channel outbound, no little friends nearby. One of the bastards did a crazy vertical dive on us. Never seen that before. He came at us so fast no one had time to put a bead on him. Luckily he and two of his pals outright missed. The 109 on our tail got shot up by Tim and broke off. His friend at our 3 o'clock gave Tim a bad gut wound and he was out for the rest of the flight. Lieutenant Neil got revenge on the last 109 though, and nailed him as he came around for a second pass. The waist gunners pulled Tim out and tried to make him as comfortable as possible.

Curiously enemy fighter defense was light over the target. Some knucklehead in an Me110 decided to do a vertical climb on us. Made a nice fat target for Sgt, Harshmann, who notched another kill.

Clouds obscured the first pass so we had to go around. Flak still hasn't gotten our number, even with the multiple chances it had. Neil must have been a bit disoriented by the go-around because he couldn't find any target reference points at all. He dropped on what he thought was the target but missed completely.

Coming back out was a bit more hectic. Although I don't know what got into our gunners. They managed to score 3 out of 5 kills and all our probables and damaged claims coming back home. I guess they just wanted to make sure Tim got back okay.

Speaking of which, of all the luck the heater on his suit went out. Lucky hit by a Fw190 as we made the turn to go back home. I made the decision to stay in formation, figuring that the cold would help the blood clot more and stop him from bleeding out on the way home. I guess it worked. Doc says Tim will be okay in a few months. We won't see him again before our tour is out though. I hope he makes it.

I could really enjoy a game like this, but as i said, not if i have to micro supplies and stuff..

If that's what the niche players who are gonna buy this want...fine. But there'd have to be some kind of system where i could assign trucks to groups of units and have them automatically drive to them, supply them, return to base when out of supplies, then go back out.

It'd still have all the ability to interrupt supply lines and everything in the game now but you wouldn't have to micro supply trucks to all your different groups of units.

I would also love to have the supply trucks be automatically managed. If done right it could even be an aspect of the strategy itself. For example, I assume that the supply trucks don't care which units they are supplying in the current version of the game. But what if you could designate the supply trucks to only supply a certain type of unit. Such as "Supply Company A, only supply armored units. Supply Company B, only supply arty units". Then you could be sure to count on your trucks being full of supply for those critical units rather than peddling it out for units that you don't really care about at the moment. Or, on the other hand, you could have the supply trucks supply any unit in the region and just have them follow a designated path.

In addition to the "automatically follow and supply" option you could specify other factors. Such as "Go back to HQ for more supply when at 50%, 25% or completely empty". Then give the player the option to manually redirect half empty or quarter empty supply trucks if a unit needs supply at a critical moment.

Finally, I would expect that it would be easier for lines of supply to be interdicted when they are auto-managed by the AI instead of microed by the player. I know I could completely forget about my supply trucks after putting them on auto-resupply until I see my tanks aren't getting resupplied. Then I would be vulnerable to enemy raiders destroying my supply trucks. If I were to micro them however, I could see myself baby-sitting them or flicking back to them every 10-15 seconds, thus making it harder for the enemy to sneak attack my trucks.

Debrief:Outbound trip to target generally uneventful. Looks like some other bombers drew the short straw this time. No attacking waves came near us until zone 6, where Sgt. Harshman claimed a probable on an Me109 and Lt. Stenzel damaged his wingman.

An ace Me110 pilot gave us a lot of trouble over the target area. Walked hits all over the fuselage, knocking out the ball turret, wounding the tail gunner, and giving us a scare in the pilot compartment with shrapnel zinging around. Sgt. Harshmann was stuck in a non-functioning ball turret for the rest of the flight. I said a silent prayer to keep the landing gear safe and functional. I'm sure Sgt. Harshmann did too. The Ace 110 came around again and bounced more shrapnel around the pilot compartment. He came so close that I ducked down during his second pass. Good thing too, because a bullet cracked the windshield right about eye level. Luckily Sgt. Havener in the top turret nailed him when he came around for a third pass.

Moderate flack over the target, no damage to us. Our replacement bombadier had a steady eye and put the bombs in the pickel barrel. Can't ask for more than that. We were jumped by four 190's during the turn to head back. Sargeants Junkins and Havener damaged two of them and scared them into missing. Their two friends also shot wide and high.

No more action for us until zone 4. Sgt. Havener damaged a 109. A lucky 109 pilot hit us in the port wing root and cracked some glass on the instrumentation. The ground crew is amazed that nothing critical was hit after seeing all of the holes in the pilot compartment. Not so lucky on his second pass. Lieutenant Stenzel must have gotten him right in the engine because that 109 exploded like a firecracker. Nice to have a navigator who is also a pretty good shot.

I'm still playing SWOTR. About an hour every night. The nice thing about limited playing time for me is that it make me think long and hard before buying my next purchase. God knows my backlog is too big already.

I am unclear on the copyright issue for B-17 and hence for the rulebook but I can say that google is your friend .

Also, I have played hornet leader and enjoyed it very much. Not as much as thunderbolt-apache leader (A-10s and AH-64s) - which is fortunately being re-released by the designer. I put in a pre-order for that as well as one for The Hunters, which is being billed as "B-17 Queen of the Skies" for u-boats.

I've been at lvl 28 w/ my jedi sage this week, bringing Theran along instead of Qyzen for a change of pace. Theran started off with a beard and stache. Then, after I hit 29 I decided to and buy Theran an orange chest armor w/ my Tatooine commendations. Next time I look at him he's lost the beard and has a 70's style stache. Has anyone else seen their companions change appearance like that?

I haven't tried seeing if his beard comes back with the old gear. I'll try that tonight.

That looks pretty cool. I'd probably get into it just for making dioramas even if I didn't get to play the game with others. I notice that the Flames of War miniatures are kind of pricey and some people are saying the minis from Plastic Soldier Company are almost as good and cheaper.

I've had fond memories of playing the Avalon Hill boardgame: B17 Queen of the Skies. Its a solitaire game where you create a crew, name your plane, and try to survive 25 missions so you can be rotated home. Its not so much a simulation as it is a game narrative, as I tend to root for my individual crew members and dread the roll of the dice to see what happens to them. I put the game away a long time ago because it seemed a bit lonely playing by myself and because it just seemed so cumbersome dealing with the charts.

Well two things changed that this week. One was the discovery of a B-17 Vassal module. Vassal is a open source java engine which lets you load modules to play virtual boardgames on your computer. The other was the discovery of an ongoing play-by-forum bombing campaign on boardgamegeek. I decided to jump right in since the folks there seemed nice enough and they're always looking for new B-17 crews in the campaign.

If you have fond memories of playing B-17 then I recommend you check out both the vassal module and the ongoing bombing campaign. Or you can just enjoy the after action reports and root for my B-17 crew:

Debrief:Outbound trip to target generally uneventful due to excellent fighter cover. Noticed numerous enemy aircraft driven off by P-47s. It was only over the target that our gunners were able to draw some blood, in return for damage to our starboard wing. Still, it did not affect our ability to bomb the target, tail gunner reports seeing a few good effects on target.

Flak over the target was initially light, then turned heavy during the turn to head back home. Luckily no bursts damaged our plane. Germans decided to hitus with everything just as we were leaving the target area. An Me110 at 9 level came close enough to rake us all along the fuselage. Engine fire extinguisher controls and starboard waist gun rendered inoperable. Ground crew reports several holes in the bomb bay, right where the bombs would have been if he had caught us before they dropped. Thank God for small favors.

Shrapnel from a second Me110 wounded Lt. Benzing in the leg, causing severe bleeding. He managed to apply the tourniquet to himself. Doc says he may lose the leg but at least he's still alive.

A quintet of Fw190s hit us near the French coast. Three were driven off by our little friends. The remaining two 190s were so rattled that they fired offshort bursts at long range before disengaging. Would like to pass on our formal thanks to the fighter squadrons on the inbound trip.

Thought we were home free over the channel but were attacked by two more 190s. One coming in at 12 level was destroyed by our engineer. The other took his revenge on Sgt. Brady who suffered severe wounds to his neck and chest. He died on landing.

Did my sage's first mission impersonating a Sith, infiltrating Empire territory. I found it amusing that she started speaking with an English accent when trying to bluff past the guards. Wonder if there are impersonation style missions for any of the other Republic classes. And hmmmmm, does that mean Empire classes impersonating as Republic drop the english accent?

B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th w/ up to 64 player coop and the ability to have multi-crewed bombers.Search and Rescue: Vietnam Med+EvacAnd a spiritual successor to Rescue on Fractalus, where you play a SAR space-pilot in the future.